REVIEW 722: BATLA HOUSE

When the hero of
Kabir Khan’s empathetic and thoughtful albeit flawed New
York (2009), chooses to become a vehicle not just for Islamophobia
but also for a ruling party’s PR, you know how far gone we are as a country
down a road of ji huzoori.

John Abraham may
not be one of the Khan trio or Akshay Kumar or Hrithik Roshan, but in his own
quiet beaver-like way he has earned his star wattage. He has also been a
pioneer of matters rarely given the weightage they deserve in the public
discourse on cinema. In the era Before Abraham, it was generally assumed that
women in the Hindi film audience lack hormones. Sure, it was understood that
female fans would weep and go bonkers over good-looking heroes, but that
phenomenon was usually discussed in a patronising tone about giggly girly
silliness and never as an overt acknowledgement of the female viewers’
sexuality. Then Abraham came along in 2003 and merrily took on the post of
poster boy for male bare-chestedness, publicly spoke of how much he enjoyed
being objectified by women, went so far as to strip down to microscopic yellow
swimming trunks for Dostana in 2008,
and voluntarily got hosed down while topless by a bunch of gorgeous women in
his production debut, Vicky Donor
(2012), with no contextual backing in the script as if to snub his nose at his
industry and society’s assumption till then that being objectified is the job
of glamorous women alone.

With his body
builder’s physique, Abraham fit the socially accepted definition of masculinity
in a patriarchal world. Yet with Dostana
he was snubbing his nose at whoever came up with that definition too, by choosing to play a chap pretending
to be gay in a film in which a conservative Indian mother gave her
blessing to her son who she believed to be gay and his relationship with the
man she believed was his partner (Abraham). Take that, homophobic patriarchy.

He later played a
stripper in Desi Boyz (2011).

When a star who has
contested gender stereotypes and questioned sectarian prejudice starts
bowing to the establishment, you have to wonder if hope is a candle in the
wind that may soon be snuffed out.

Hear this, people:
John Abraham, persistent stereotype-buster and star of sensitive political
cinema from an era gone by, is the latest Bollywood icon to turn unofficial
spokesperson for The party and The ideology. He plays a fictional ACP Sanjay
Kumar, modelled on the real-life DCP Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, in director Nikkhil
Advani’s Batla House. This is an
account – fictionalised only to the extent that it can give the team a figleaf
for legal protection – of the real-life incident that took place at Batla House
in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar area in September 2008 in which two alleged terrorists
of the Indian Mujahideen and Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma of the Delhi Police
were killed.

Back in 2008, there
was an uproar following these deaths. Some political parties, representatives
of the Muslim community and human rights activists had alleged that it was a
fake encounter engineered by the police who were under pressure to show results
in their investigation into the recent bomb blasts in the Capital. There was
also a theory that M.C. Sharma’s death was a result of inter-departmental rivalry
and not an encounter – this was touted as the only credible explanation for why
he was not wearing a bulletproof vest when reportedly barging into a room with
suspected terrorists. Activists even rejected the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC) report on the case, accusing the NHRC of not conducting its
own independent investigation into the matter but relying entirely on the official
police version of events. The police have consistently denied all charges, but
they have yet to subside.

There is a case to
be made for a film examining all sides of this story, and probing all parties
concerned. Such a project would be a risk at all times, of course, but
especially today when questioning the ruling BJP’s prescribed line on any
matter has become dangerous. And so, Advani plays it safe, standing firmly on
the side of the police in the Batla House encounter, othering Muslims
inexorably, stereotyping human rights activists, journalists who look below the
surface and defence lawyers, and taking a clear position against BJP’s arch
rival that was in government at the time of the encounter, the Congress.

Doing all this is
apparently not enough. The past 3-5 years have, after all, seen the rise of the
deshbhakt hero and heroine whose
notion of patriotism conforms 100% to the Sangh Parivar vision and whose roll
call of evil never strays an inch from the enemies identified by the ruling
party: Pakistan, anti-establishment journalists, Congress, activists, Muslims.
Towards this end, the Akshay Kumar-starrer Kesari
went so far as to uphold as patriots a Sikh regiment that fought for the
British and against Pathan (read: Muslim) freedom fighters in the real-life
Battle of Saragarhi in 1897. Why? Because demonising Muslims has always been part
of the Sangh Parivar’s agenda and winning Sikh affection has been BJP’s goal since
around 2002.

With so many of
Team Advani-Abraham’s obsequious colleagues vying for the Sangh/BJP’s attention,
Batla House proceeds to lay it on
thick by showing the good Hindu hero lecturing a Muslim terror suspect about
the “paak kitaab”, same hero who becomes
an emotional puddle at the mere sight of the national flag, same hero who sees
a nightmarish vision of – literally – being tossed around and engulfed by a
skullcap-wearing mob. I kid you not.

The latter visual
plays up the prevailing stereotype of the fearsome, violent Muslim, but it is
more than that. I cannot remember a more glaring symbolic representation on
screen of the long-running Sangh/BJP propaganda that Muslims are multiplying
uncontrollably and will soon swamp India’s Hindus.

Batla House does not stop at ideological agreement with the
ruling dispensation. The film gives BJP a solid push by adopting the party’s
many stances against the Congress. A fictional top honcho in the Home Ministry
is shown telling the police not to target people from just one community for
terror activities and to “keep a balance”. He is listed as “Home Minister
Shivaji Patil” in the rolling credits and is played by Anil Rastogi who bears a
strong resemblance to Congress’ Shivraj Patil, the Union Home Minister at the
time of the Batla House encounter. This scene propagates the BJP’s line that
the Congress foisted false terror cases on Hindus. Later, the Delhi Police’s
mundu-wearing boss in the Home Ministry is shown slamming them at a private
meeting for standing in the way of his priority, which is to not be seen as
anti-minority. Nikkhil Advani may well argue that P. Chidambaram is not the
only mundu-wearing neta in Delhi, but oh c’mon, he was the only mundu-wearing Union
Home Minister from November 2008 to July 2012, and the character is listed as “Home
Minister P.C. Naidu” in the rolling credits. Cellophane paper is less transparent
than this.

Sowithout naming the Congress, Batla House makes every effort to remind us that the Congress was
heading the Central government at the time. Apart from the above two gentlemen,
the reminders come in the form of a placard addressing “Sonia and Rahul” in a
protesting crowd, archival footage of the real Digvijay Singh questioning the
police’s account of what happened at Batla House, footage of the real Salman
Khurshid giving a speech about Sonia Gandhi’s reaction to the episode and so
on. All this is juxtaposed against the film’s sympathy for the police alone –
the kind, hardworking, sincere police.

The message of Batla House is clear: (1) Muslims play
victim to camouflage their crimes (2) Congress supports Muslims whether they
are right or wrong (3) human rights activists play along (4) Hindus are
victimised (5) the Congress faked cases against Hindus to appease Muslims, blah
blah blah. It is a page right out of the Sangh Parivar book.

This is why Batla House’s opening disclaimer, “any
resemblance to any person living or dead is unintended and purely coincidental”,
is so laughable. Because the film is filled with blatant efforts to tell us
that the resemblance is, in fact, intended and not at all coincidental. For a
start, shortly after that text fades away, a switch from a visual of the
real-life DCP Sanjeev Kumar Yadav to John Abraham’s ACP Sanjay Kumar is
designed to settle any doubt that the latter is the former without putting it in
words.

(Aside: There is a
slip-up in the closing text about Sanjay Kumar that appears on screen. Instead
of referring to him as “Kumar”, the very last line goes: “Yadav has led more
than 70 encounters.” Yadav? John Abraham’s character is not called Yadav even
once in the film, so this blooper raises the possibility that the filmmaker
originally planned to name his hero Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, but was advised
against it since legal proceedings related to the real Batla House encounter
are still on. The text writer was either forgetful, confused or plain
inefficient.)

The opening
disclaimer is a legal compulsion, I get it, but there is also a rather weird
mid-film disclaimer during a courtroom scene stating that the film does not
intend to take sides – this is an insult to viewer intelligence since by then
its bias is screaming out.

Batla House tries to keep itself in the clear by changing the
names of most players involved or leaving them unnamed, but the points it
wishes to make are trumpeted in multiple ways.

In place of M.C.
Sharma who was killed at Batla House, the film features an Inspector K.K. Verma
(Ravi Kishan) who reports to ACP Sanjay Kumar (Abraham). We learn right at the
start that KK defied Sanjay’s order, which was to investigate the presence of
the suspects holed up in Batla House but not confront them. This first half
hour or so of Batla House is
interesting because it suggests that all versions and angles will be examined.
This possibility is particularly intriguing because Sanjay Kumar himself is
shown lying to his senior (Manish Chaudhary) that two suspects were killed in
the Batla House flat by KK and his team – actually, what we saw before that was
Sanjay and his team killing the two suspects when they entered the flat at Batla
House after KK is down.

It soon becomes
clear though that only one version of events will be given credibility in this
narrative: the police’s official version. And so, Sanjay’s lie is forgotten, KK’s
defiance is papered over, confusion is intentionally created with Rashomon-style retellings of what must
have happened in that building and Sanjay’s decision to cover up for the dead
man is presented as a sign of his nobility. And noble he certainly is, a man so
bound to his duty that he is willing to sacrifice his marriage for it and is
now suffering from PTSD while callous politicians, activists and other terrible
people play politics over him.

The extended focus
on PTSD in such a mainstream film is unusual for Bollywood, as is the fact that
an actor with such a macho image plays a character who seeks therapy.
Unfortunately, Batla House’s
spotlight on its hero’s mental health is overshadowed by its larger agenda.

The film’s
cleverness lies in the fact that it is not as shoddy as another recent propaganda
offering, the tacky PM Narendra Modi.
Advani’s film is much smarter. It plays mind games with the audience by
painting Team Sanjay Kumar as a thoroughly likeable lot with perfectly
understandable grouses (who can deny that, generally speaking, well-intentioned
police personnel do suffer at the hands of corrupt, manipulative netas?), by
not explaining the specifics of the questions raised by activists against the
police and NHRC in this particular case, and by not being cartoonish in its
contempt for the antagonists.

The manipulation
happens at many levels. For instance, anyone other than the police is sketchily
written, so that there is no question of the audience being invested in any of
them. Muslims are represented either as angry crowds or as terrorists, full
stop. The individual who gets most screen time among the police’s critics in Batla House is a lawyer called Shailesh
Arya played by Rajesh Sharma – Arya is given a dignified demeanour until the
courtroom scenes in which he reveals himself to be an over-the-top and mean
fellow, a dimwitted dodo who has barely done any homework and ends up
unwittingly proving Sanjay Kumar’s case for him. How can the viewer not admire
Sanjay when the opposition is portrayed as being stupid and insensitive? Game
won.

Although Abraham's decision to be a part of this venture
comes as a surprise, anyone closely following Advani’s filmography should not
be taken aback. He began his journey with the iconic romance Kal Ho Naa Ho. This was followed by a
series of box-office disasters and critical duds, among them Chandni Chowk to China, Hero starring Sooraj Pancholi and
Athiya Shetty, and Katti Batti. He
has largely made politically innocuous films, with one exception: D-Day (2013).

While purportedly
being a detailed account of an undercover Indian team’s bid to unofficially
extradite a wanted terrorist from Pakistan, D-Day
broke from its understated tone in the climax when the terrorist in question
goes berserk and delivers a long speech about how he knows Indians will do
nothing to him beyond take him across the border to offer him their hospitality
– this was the language of the right-wing Indian discourse that had already
increased in volume by then, the language of the people who manufactured the
story that Manmohan Singh’s government fed biryani to Kasab when the populist
demand was that criminals, especially terrorists, should be released in a town
square where the mob should be left to dispense justice.

What was remarkable
about D-Day’s climax was not merely
that it was playing to the gallery, but that it was a departure from the muted,
ruminative tenor of the rest of the film. It was almost as if the lava had been
simmering below the surface, the anger had been festering below the skin until
the writers could no longer hold back and they erupted.

Six years later, in
an era when people are less inclined to camouflage their true colours, Batla House reunites Advani with one of
the writers of D-Day, Ritesh Shah.
Surprise!

Abraham pares down
his glamourous personality for this role, and is earnest. He does make a
concession to his core competency though with two passing shirtless shots.

Mrunal Thakur who
was very impressive in last year’s Love
Sonia plays Sanjay’s wife in Batla
House, reduced to being the proverbial woman-behind-the-man in a virtually
all-male show.

Ravi Kishan’s craft
is challenged somewhat by the various versions of his actions recounted by
different parties, giving him the opportunity to display some range unlike the
rest of the characters who are all fitted into limited boxes and not given any
breathing space.

Batla House has no patience with nuance or debate. The bad
are 360 degrees of bad, the good are 360 degrees of good and their evil deeds
can all be excused as being for the larger good. So determined is the film to
toe the police line, that it trivialises questions about the foolhardiness of a
policeman not wearing a bulletproof vest before entering a room in which he
believed there were armed terrorists.

In one scene,
during a closed-door discussion, Sanjay admits that the police may have done
fake encounters and planted weapons on people in the past but they have done so
only because the enemy is not straight, because the enemy breaks the law. This stand
too dips into the most voluble elements in the public discourse these days
advocating anti-democratic methods of law enforcement.

Over the decades,
many Hindi films have justified police atrocities with black-and-white accounts
of crime and punishment, but Batla House
is unique in other ways. In the pre-2000 era, Bollywood favoured a positive
stereotyping of Muslims (the shayari-spouting romantic, the golden-hearted
tawaif, the kind fakir bringing up the abandoned Hindu child, etc), a
stereotyping that liberals largely did not question although positive
stereotyping should always be seen as a form of othering, either as
over-compensation for the prejudice surrounding the filmmaker in question or as
a warning sign that the person is trying to mask their own prejudice. This
closeted prejudice has been straining to break out, and finally emerged in full
force in the past couple of years with films like Padmaavat, Kesari and Kalank that have trumpeted the
Sangh-backed negative stereotype of Muslims.

Batla House goes a step further by openly using the language
of “them” and “us” – literally – with regard to Muslims. During his testimony
in court, Sanjay Kumar tries to appear balanced by equally deriding unequivocal
“himaayat” (support, patronage,
protection) and “mukhalfat”
(hostility, opposition) towards Muslims – he is not the enemy of boys like the
ones caught at Batla House, he tells the judge, the enemy are those who either
always support or always oppose “inki
qaum” (their community).

Their. They. Them. Versus
us. “Inki qaum.” That those two words
are spoken by a star who once defied the establishment is heartbreaking.

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About Me

Anna MM Vetticad is an award-winning journalist, journalism teacher and author of the critically acclaimed bestseller The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic, an overview of the Hindi film industry presented through an account of a year in which she watched every single Bollywood film released in India’s National Capital Region. A journalist since 1994, she has worked with India Today, The Indian Express and Headlines Today. At HT she hosted her own interview show Star Trek which drew all India’s eminent entertainment personalities. While Anna has spent most of her career as a behind-the-scenes editorial person, she has also reported on most major Indian entertainment and lifestyle events and several international ones including Cannes and the Oscars, in addition to being the film critic for Headlines Today. She is currently reporting and writing for multiple publications on cinema and social issues with a focus on gender concerns. The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic is available on amazon.com, ebay.in, flipkart.com, ombooksinternational.com, ombooks.com, infibeam.com, homeshop18.com and dialabook.in among other websites, and in stores across India. Twitter: @annavetticad